Celebrating B Movies, Cult Films, and Indie Classics.

Cheesy films… Now I am not talking about films that literally have a block of cheese on top of the DVD/Blu-Ray or the movie is about that. I am talking about those movies that people generally discount as being bad… Bad because the acting is not up to most people's standards, or the story or special effects are bad.

To be a true fan of what is considered to be a B movie, you almost have to respect the cheesy movie, and to see beyond it's Saturday afternoon shlock fest…

With that said, I recent discovered a 'cheesy' movie, that I just thought was fun some what mindless entertainment (although not really mindless, but we'll get in to that in a few.)

Now you might be asking yourself what is this movie? And why would I recommend a cheesy movie? Well folks, the movie is Zone Troopers and the reason being I think you will see as you read through this recommendation…

Zone Troopers tells the story of a couple of soldiers in Italy during World War 2, who while behind enemy lines get some out of this world help on their way to their own lines!

What I mean by this, is that the movie begins with a platoon of American Soldiers in a small abandoned Italian town during World War 2 who are just waiting to be able to contact their side of the front lines… The reason why the American soldiers don't seem to be able to contact their own soldiers, is because their seems to be some sort of strange interference with their gear…

Mittens and Joey as they wait for reinforcements

With that said, and despite the objections of Sarge (Thomerson), the unit commander decides to have them wait there for the American re-enforcements to arrive (which of course they never do) and while they are waiting, a Nazi unit launches a sneak attack on the American's and just utterly slaughters everyone accept, the Sarge, a Corporal with the name 'Mittens' (LaFleur) a Private by the name of Joey (Van Patten) and a civilian reporter by the name of Dolan (He was hitching a ride with Sarge's unit in an effort to do a story on the Sarge.)

Anyway, after these American Soldiers make their escape, they decide to make camp for the evening in an old abandoned building, with Joey being the first on watch…

Now to understand this next segment you got understand that Joey is a young idealistic soldier who loves to read Sci Fi stories… With that said, during his watch, he notices a strange figure in the darkness, and thinking that it mi

ght be Mitten's playing a dirty trick, decides to investigate the situation… Well it turns out that this strange figure was an Alien!

The Alien

With that said, of course Joey takes off for their camp…

When he gets their though, he decides to destroy his Sci Fi magazine…

The next morning, after a conversation between Joey and Dolan about the nights surprises. Mitten's comes running in to the building and mentions about the deer that he had seen (It is never expressly mentioned, but I strongly suspect that it was probably the Alien that Joey had also seen.)

With that said though, Dolan convinces Mittens to go out hunting with him for the deer, and convinces Joey not to wake the Sarge (What a mistake that was.) You see during their hunting trip, they come across an elite Nazi camp that looks mostly abandoned. And after a failed attempt to convince Mitten's to go down to the camp. Dolan heads down anyway…

It turns out that this camp is not entirely empty and thus after a failed attempt by Mitten's to rescue Dolan, they both are captured!

Now during Mittens' and Dolan's captivity, and after Joey and Sarge investigate the Alien's spaceship (and blow it up!) Joey and Sarge set up a plan to spring Mittens and Dolan from their Nazi captors, and will ultimately allow for the Alien to escape the Nazi's as well, so that the American's and the Alien can head off to their own camps!

The American soldiers and the Alien, after the escape for captivity.

With that said, what I gotta say that I like about this movie, and what I do think makes this movie a completely awesome b movie is a couple of things:

1. This movie is cheesy, and I gotta say that I loved that! At first I thought that this movie was gonna be just your mindlessly entertaining shlock fest… But in the end, I realized that I was rooting for all of them to escape the Nazi occupied area!

2. I also thought that it was actually kind of cool that Art LaFluer was able to slug the guy who played Hitler… I mean it may just be symbolic, but I just thought it was great to see that good vs evil, but it was in my opinion anyway a little like saying up yours to Nazism again!

3. Now for myself I have never seen the movie Trancers (have always wanted to, but have not had the time to…) With that said, with this movie re-uniting quite a few of the peeps from the Trancers series, I am now gonna see that movie because of how well they did in this one!

If your looking for a fun entertaining movie to watch that couple both Aliens and World War 2. Then I highly recommend checking this one out! It is a fun one!